My daughter, Emma and her boyfriend, Nick recently brought me some lovely flowers including some brightly colored carnations. I thought they were perfect for a trial run with my new microwave flower press — a gift from my other daughter, Shelley. The press yielded great results right out of the gate and will allow me to use more flowers in my work. ! I’m sure I will find inspiration for many designs with these pretty petals but this one was irresistible.

This piece is also a departure in that it combines computer graphics with acrylic painting for the background. I used a deep brownish yellow printed foreground to support painted grasses. The plants other than carnations are fern and ginkgo. As always, I varied the size of the fronds to create depth of field.

I don’t know what it is about graph paper, but I’ve always loved it. In school, I used it for note-taking. It’s also great when you hit a wall trying to solve the Times acrostic puzzle and need to start from scratch. So why not use a graph paper design to lay out some pretty foliage? I started with some individual fronds from my giant ferns and added some more delicate specimens to balance out the composition. They include Sweet Woodruff, new growth Andromeda and a single sprig of Candytuft.

Just when I thought the supply of pressed ferns from last year’s garden had been depleted, I was walking the perimiter of my (1/4 acre) property and found these great green ferns which had actually thrived all winter, snow and all. They were growing under my hydrangea where I never remember seeing ferns in the past. I could hardly wait to process them and get to work. Here is the first result. I have one double-headed one that will eventually make it into a larger composition. You can see I used the lighter back side of three of the fronds better to show up against the night sky. I’ve already completed the graphic for a companion piece that will have a wintery aspect. Maybe tomorrow. See the rest of this growing collection here.